baldilocks

Blind Man's Bluff

UPDATE: Dude! I got called a racist because of this post! Hahaha!

ORIGINAL POST:

Among the many types of bilateral divisions among people, there is this one: those who can come to a reasonable conclusion after stringing together a pattern of cause and effect and those who cannot. Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele has repeatedly shown that he falls in the latter category.

RNC chair Michael Steele defended his spending practices Monday morning, saying he has no plan to resign, and at one point suggesting that criticism of his tenure may be rooted in racism.

(…)

Asked if “as an African-American” he has “a slimmer margin for error than another chairman would,” Steele replied: “The honest answer is yes.” Steele went on to explain that, like Barack Obama, he has had to contend with racism as someone who is “not ole boy network.”

Since Steele was elected as RNC chair over men more conservative than he is—including Ohio’s Kenneth Blackwell who is also black—we’ve seen the following occur under his watch:

• During an interview, Steele mutely nodded his head after the interviewer--comedian D.L. Hughley-- asserted that the GOP Convention “looked like Nazi Germany” simply because the Convention was mostly white.
• He needlessly picked a fight with Rush Limbaugh.
• He put his book on the market and began to promote it without telling the RNC.
• He told Sean Hannity that the Republicans would not win back the House and Senate in 2010 and that the GOP isn’t ready to lead.
• He has squandered the coffers of the RNC with nothing to show for it.
• The stripper issue--not his fault but it occurred after all of the things which were.
• His repeated attempts to "urbanize" the GOP are silly, condescending and embarrassing.
• He has repeatedly tried to deflect criticism of his performance as RNC chairman by saying that it is rooted in racism or in fear.

When one starts at a position, one has a margin for error which is of a certain size.  The fewer errors one makes as time goes on, the greater the margin for error becomes.  And the opposite is true: the more errors one makes, the smaller the margin for error becomes.  Mr. Steele’s margin for error is smaller than it was when he first became RNC chair due entirely to the fact that he has made so many errors and due to the fact that he seems incapable of learning from them.  In fact, I bet that he doesn’t even think that he has made any mistakes. 

Does that mindset sound familiar?

When Steele came up as the front-runner for RNC chair right after the election of Barack Obama as POTUS,  it was obvious that the RNC wanted to counter Obama’s blackness with Steele’s.  I opined at other blogs that if the RNC absolutely felt the need to engage in the dubious practice of tokenism , that it could have at least elected Blackwell who is more conservative than Steele.  But, apparently the Committee also wanted to counter Obama’s media stardom and Steele definitely had a much better carved-out media presence than did Blackwell.  The RNC went totally for style over substance and look where it has gotten us.  And almost predictably, Obama and Steele are representing their respective organizations about equally as well.

If it weren’t for the total full-tilt Juggernaut that is the Democrat Party’s socialist/fascist agenda and the resulting push-back of the Tea Parties and unlikely candidates like now-Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), there would be no hope, if you’ll pardon the expression.

One top RNC fundraiser has had enough. He’s not the only one.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE:  Ouch! "Race is the Only Thing Helping Steele":

Steele is hapless, solipsistic, and incompetent. When he isn't embarrassing his party with his personal antics, or his staff's, he's setting it up for failure by driving away its top fundraisers and not keeping pace with Democrats.

Many observers are hypothesizing that Steele is a Democrat plant.  Well, he couldn't do any better--or worse, depending on which side one resides--if it were true.

(Thanks to Leon Wolf)

Always on the Late Freight (UPDATED)

I have this annoying habit--well, at least I'm annoyed by it--of starting what I think is some great commentary, and then getting side-tracked.  So by the time I get back around to the commentary, it's out-dated and I don't post it.  And sometimes, as we know, it only takes a few hours for some commentary to become outdated.  Readers have noted that when I comment on a topic, I often attack it sideways. Well of course I do to say because I'm certainly not going to be the first to comment.  That's too much like work. (And then there's that issue of naturally being a little bit different.)

So I figured what the heck?  I'm going to post some of it anyway with a nice little preamble and a blurb related to how the situation turned out.

******

The following is what I wrote on December 5 after Michaele at Tareq Salahi managed to bogart their way into the White HouseState Dinner which took place the day before Thanksgiving Day.

This administration likes all the trappings of wealth and power: the SUV limos, the ability to clear a city for blocks, the private jet, the  ability to travel  at will and at where, the designers hankering to be employed , the magazine covers.

I’ve known people like this all my life.  Such persons will bash those richer than they but if these bashers get blessed (or become crooked) they will not be shy about throwing the evidence of their wealth in your face.  It’s a mini-drama played out in traffic all the time here in Southern California and, undoubtedly, all over.  My great-aunt calls it ‘floor-showing.’   Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary,  is just the latest to display a failing that is rife in the administration: she wants to enjoy the trappings related to one of the most exalted positions  in the world and, therefore, be seen as existing in that exalted status without properly bearing the responsibilities of the job she was hired to do. 

Money is a tool and nothing more.  It can indicate compartmentalized intelligence, but it is no general indicator of IQ.  Know any drug dealers or US Senators?  I rest my case.  Amounts of money do not point God’s blessing; however, properly allocated money does and God blesses whom he sees fit.

Earthly status, however, is much harder to attain.  The Obamas and their cronies seem to think that high status is conferred by position and the trappings of that position only; by being lucky; by being seen at the right place at the right party wearing the right thing.  By being able to buzz the Statue of Liberty in your "personal" jet. By being able to jet off to Europe at will.  They seem to think that no one has ever gained status by gaining knowledge and applying that knowledge or by being humble enough to realize that sometimes becoming fully competent at a job behind the scenes is its own reward and inherently has its own status.

So instead of the White House Social Secretary personally working with the Secret Service to  make sure that any glitches in the security of the State Dinner for the Indian premier, she is at the party rubbing elbows with the guests.  She there to be seen.

And while she’s being seen, guests without invitations get in and shake hands with the president.  But the actions of Ms. Rogers are merely symptomatic of the mindset of this president and this presidency.  A person who didn't get to the place he is by actual merit--who probably doesn't even believe in the value of merit--is not going to care about competency.  And so the incompetence in areas large and small will keep on revealing themselves.

100 years--assuming we're still here.  Feel free to ask me what I'm talking about.

AFTERMATH: Rogers appears to have learned her lesson.

As guests proceeded inside the southeast gate to the White House, they were asked to show photo identification at two separate checkpoints. Along the way, several employees from the social secretary’s office and other areas of the administration were on hand, in case any stray guests turned up.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes greeted visitors when they approached the East Colonnade, where Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, stood and welcomed guests. An identification badge hung around her neck, like the rest of the White House staff, as she extended her hand to guests.

“Welcome to the White House – on behalf of the Obamas,” Ms. Rogers said with a smile.

UPDATE:  Forgot about this.

Two weeks before the Salahis' infamous appearance at the state dinner, a Georgia couple accidentally showed up a day early for a White House tour -- and instead were escorted into an invitation-only breakfast with President Obama and the first lady, the Associated Press reports.

Georgia retirees Harvey and Paula Darden had already been background checked by the appropriate agencies. Dangerous? The persons, no. The mindset which produces glitches in security and various other areas in this administration? Most certainly dangerous.

One thing and I've said this elsewhere: I wonder if these glitches in presidential security are intentional and the Secret Service is being discredited.

I didn't used to be a Conspiracy Theorist.

(Thanks to Ed B.)

Not Pretty

People are missing the big bombshell embedded in this incident!

The testy exchange [between White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and April Ryan of American Urban Radio] was sparked by Ryan's insistent questioning of White House social secretary Desiree Rogers' role at the recent state dinner, which has been in the headlines because of the fallout from Tareq and Michaele Salahi's "party crashing."

Watch.

Did you hear that? It was disgusting!

Someone actually reproduced with Robert Gibbs!

That is a straight-up news flash because I would think that such a combination of stupidity, arrogance, condescension and fugliness would make a powerful unattractiveness cocktail--one repellent nearly universally. But I guess that the aphorism that "there's someone for everyone" applies here.

Yuckies.

Victicrat Civil War

...with acknowledgement to the Sage of South Central for the use of the term.

Too delicious:

The long-simmering family feud between the Congressional Black Caucus and the first African-American president burst into the open on Wednesday, with members boycotting a financial overhaul vote as a warning shot at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

From what I can tell, members of the Race Baiters Caucus are angry that the Race Baiter in Chief is neither kowtowing to them nor cutting them a sufficiently large enough piece of the action known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

So what else is the CBC thinking of doing to "force" the Obama Administration to see reason?

[My Congressional Representative Maxine] Waters suggested the CBC’s 43 members could vote with the GOP to scuttle a variety of Democratic bills if Obama and [White House Chief of Staff Rahm] Emanuel don’t address what she thinks is a lack of understanding of the CBC’s wide-ranging goals of reducing urban unemployment, home foreclosures and bank failures.

Fools negotiating foolishly from a position of weakness--though I'm sure that the Republicans will take it.  But it's hilarious that the Hope and Change Express Bus won't even slow down for those who were and are its main source of fuel. Thus is it always with Leftists.

(Thanks to Instapundit)

Hope the Leftists Love Their Parents Too

Then, again, Mommy and Daddy issues are the root of Leftism.

(click photo for source)

(Thanks to Darmon Thornton)

So "Proud"

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) steps in it again, this time using her witless concepts about race.  Why does all the fun stuff happen on Thursday when I have obligations?

Help us, Sage from South Central (and run against this genius in 2010)--you're our only hope!

(Thanks to Andrew Breibart)

Eye Opener

Good morning. Familial duties take priority but the following image might be better than coffee. It's the House Democrat Health Care Plan.

(Click to enlarge)

(Linked all over but the source is here. Very good, Mr. Boehner.)

It Won't Rub Off (UPDATED)

Whoa! During the Moscow trip, many Russian officials refused to shake the president's hand!

What was that about, Cold Warriors? I know that the Russians aren't exactly open-minded about race, but come on! It's the president of the United States.

Or perhaps President Obama is too much the Leftist even for Russians. Too weird.

(Thanks to American Thinker)

UPDATE: Did the Russians Really Snub Obama?

Tales from the Cold War

Liz Cheney, daughter of the former vice president of the United States, repudiates President Obama’s version of the Cold War:

Speaking to a group of students, our president explained it this way: "The American and Soviet armies were still massed in Europe, trained and ready to fight. The ideological trenches of the last century were roughly in place. Competition in everything from astrophysics to athletics was treated as a zero-sum game. If one person won, then the other person had to lose. And then within a few short years, the world as it was ceased to be. Make no mistake: This change did not come from any one nation. The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful."

The truth, of course, is that the Soviets ran a brutal, authoritarian regime. The KGB killed their opponents or dragged them off to the Gulag. There was no free press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of worship, no freedom of any kind. The basis of the Cold War was not "competition in astrophysics and athletics." It was a global battle between tyranny and freedom. The Soviet "sphere of influence" was delineated by walls and barbed wire and tanks and secret police to prevent people from escaping. America was an unmatched force for good in the world during the Cold War. The Soviets were not. The Cold War ended not because the Soviets decided it should but because they were no match for the forces of freedom and the commitment of free nations to defend liberty and defeat Communism.

Just so.

With President Obama, it’s to the point where his groveling to and rewriting history for our enemies and frenemies has become so frequent that we are beginning to become complacent in refuting his fantasies. Good thing that pundits like the fearless progeny of Darth Cheney have not.

(Thanks to Drew M. at Ace of Spades HQ. Drew thinks that Miss Cheney and her father should be on the 2012 GOP presidential ticket and, to that end, has a most excellent slogan.)

Of the Bears (Again)

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey is running a Caption This contest for the following photo snapped during President Obama's pilgrimage visit to Moscow to mend fences (or whatever) with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

President Obama and President Medvedev bond

I haven't even read the seven pages of comments over there, but at the top of page seven is the winner--there cannot possibly be a better:

Today Georgia. Tomorrow Georgia.

In addition, the wily Vlad saw fit to praise Former President Bush's hospitality--read: class--and wish the latter a happy birthday--yesterday--in a telegram sent right before President Obama's visit.  

During the last years we have been working on strengthening Russia-U.S. cooperation. Although there were differences between our countries, I always valued your openness and sincerity," Putin said, congratulating Bush on his 63rd birthday on July 6.

"With special warmth I recall your hospitality in the Crawford ranch and your family estate in Kennebunkport," Putin wrote, referring to their 2007 meeting at the Bush family vacation home when the two leaders went fishing and ate lobster.

Is the timing mere coincidence?  "Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan."

I wonder what the results of a POTUS appearing to be the world's doormat will be.  Those on the Left believe that it will make the world love us again (sic).  Those on the Right suspect that the supine posture of a POTUS will embolden our enemies.  But I can't help but believe that a third result will come from the rude, disrespectful treatment that the president is eliciting from our enemies and frenemies.  And as with all "hunches" I get, I'm content to let this one play out--sometimes I don't want to know.

Vengeance is His

Yes I know.  I’m just jumping back in without an explanation.  Maybe later.

President Obama seems to have a problem with our closest ally, the United Kingdom.

First there was the bust of Churchill:

A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to [Former President] George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.

But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."

(Rumor has it that the president treated the bust far less ceremoniously than that.)

Then there was the president’s treatment of  UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown days ago:

Obama, breaking with precedent, wouldn't grant the prime minister the customary honor of standing beside him in front of the two nations' flags for the TV cameras. [SNIP]

Still, Brown kept a stiff upper lip as he sat in the Oval Office yesterday as Obama, skipping the usual words of welcome for his guest, went straight to questions from the news services. Brown didn't get to speak for six minutes, after Obama had already answered two questions.

Many observers seem puzzled.  I’m not and neither is the UK press.  It’s about Kenya.

If you recall, before Kenya became Kenya (1963) it was a British colony known as British East Africa.  Between 1952 and 1960, there was this little “difference of opinion” between the UK and the natives of British East Africa—primarily from the Kikuyu tribe.  That conflict is known as the Mau Mau Uprising.  There were tens of thousands of African civilians killed and, according to Wiki, seven to ten thousand Africans interned by the British colonial masters.  In Dreams from My Father, President Obama says that his grandfather was tortured by the British during the conflict, though he was not a Kikuyu but a Luo.  Guess which prime minister ordered the Mau Mau insurgency to be put down.

Mystery solved.  It seems that the president is seeking to humiliate the progeny of those who humiliated his ancestors.  Revenge isn’t that complicated a motive.

However, a question remains.  Is this any way for a President of the United States to behave?

Read also about the gifts which the Obamas gave to the Browns during the latter's visit, especially this one: a collection of 25 classic American films on DVD.  Not exactly special.  And even more curiously:  Brits can't play American DVDs.

To be fair, Prime Minister Brown was thoughtless in his gift-giving as well.  One of his gifts to the president:  a seven-volume classic biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.  One would expect a UK Prime Minister to know the history of his own country, but one could say the same thing about our own head of state.

UPDATE: Welcome, Ace's morons!

UPDATE: Welcome all others.  Just to clear up some items, I am half Luo like President Obama (take note of my URL), born and raised in the United States.  My father and the president's father arrived in the United States via the same means--the Mboya Airlift.

UPDATE (April 25, 2016): Welcome Instapundit readers! My new blog is located here.

Another Example of the "Truth"

Comedian Al Franken is running as a Democrat to take Republican Norm Coleman’s place in the US Senate. To that end, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is running the following ad:

I feel for these people. They need our prayers.

One problem, however: Norm Coleman wasn’t in the Senate when The Authorization of Use of Military Force against Iraq was agree to on October 11, 2002. Coleman wasn’t sworn in until January 7, 2003.

For using these poor people and lying to them, Al Franken and the DSCC deserve a…stern talking-to.

And...Godspeed to Major Stuart Anderson.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

'Know Your Power' Bombs (UPDATED)

When I said that Nancy Pelosi's book would probably not make any bestseller lists, I was just going by the few posted Amazon ratings. Turns out that the there have been only 2,737 copies of the book sold anywhere. I can smell *that* stinker from here.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE: The Speaker can't even console herself with her advance money.

The sad part for Pelosi is that the practice by which publishers bestow massive donations on their favored politicians via utterly unrecoverable publishing “advances” was barred by the House of Representatives. Therefore she could not get even a fraction of the phenomenal sweetheart advance paid to then Senator-elect Hillary Clinton for her various scribblings — which, while they were bought by many, still did not come close to earning out the advance paid by a publishing industry supposedly beset by economic crisis.

I hear you laughing. That's not very nice. :-)

(Thanks to Instapundit)

Nancy's Book

Timing is everything: Michelle Malkin entertainingly reviews Nancy Pelosi’s cliché laden “Know Your Power,” which the Speaker designated as a message to “America’s daughters.” The Malkin verdict? Guess.

With congressional approval ratings at an all-time low and the Democratic Congress under fire for taking a five-week vacation instead of working on energy policy, perhaps this wasn't the best time to send Nancy Pelosi jetting from coast to coast to tell our daughters how to save the planet, manage our households and run our government.

Sorry, Nan. There aren't enough carbon offsets to compensate for this tree-wasting dud and its accompanying gas-guzzling, hot air-emitting publicity tour.

The Speaker is holding an online book discussion today at 3PM EDT/12PM PDT. We'll see how long that gathering lasts.

One thing about the book's Amazon reviews: last week there were over 400, with the average rating being one star. Well, for whatever reason, the vast majority of them have been purged.

I'm less than willing, however, to ascribe sinister motives to Amazon's actions; it's their site and we all know how persistent the bum-rushers can be. At any rate, there are only 48 reviews as of this moment and 37 of the reviewers have given the Speaker's advice to our country's young women but a single star, so it's doubtful that the Speaker will make any entity's bestseller list. Just a hunch.

But now we have a clearer view as to what the Speaker's priorities are for the month of August, don't we?

C-in-C Preview (UPDATE: Transcript)

Ed Morrissey points out something I should have noticed, having been in the USAF and having been stationed in Berlin before the Wall-fall: why is Obama even in Berlin when there are no American troops there anymore?

And why is he making a speech before the Germans while skipping a visit to the DOD's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in southern Germany, to which severely injured US military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan are evacuated, then stabilized before coming home?

Answer: because talking to his peeps (the Europeans) is of the utmost importance. If he had any advocates in the military, there are probably fewer now.

(Thanks to Bob Owens)

UPDATE: Speech just ended. I have a few comments about it but I'll wait for a transcript.

UPDATE: The transcript is at the campaign site. Also at Drudge.

I thought about nit-picking the speech to death--and there are several places in the very first part of the speech which are easy targets--but changed my mind because, in this case, it doesn't matter what the wannabe King of the World said but where he said it and where he won't be going before his trip to Paris and his return to America.

UPDATE: Read:

Did I miss the part about how he was going to withdrawal all the troops from Germany in 16 months ?

Of course, he didn't say this but, likely, only because neither he nor his advisers thought of it.

UPDATE: The Landstuhl Visit That Wasn't

That Tears It

He's a plant. From whom I don't know.

Obama speech in Indiana:

But it is wonderful to be back in Indiana. In a few moments, we’ll open up the discussion. But I want to offer a few comments about some of the emerging threats that we face in the 21st century and offer some ideas about how we can face those threats.

Throughout our history, America’s confronted constantly evolving danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the frontier, from the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor, to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Americans have adapted to the threats posed by an ever-changing world.

The guy grew up in Hawaii!

Says Ed:

[A] whole lot of bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. And the threat wasn’t the bomb, it was the empire that sent massive waves of planes to drop them on our Pacific Fleet. Those bombs fell because we didn’t adapt to the threat, and in fact we kept telling ourselves that we could talk the Japanese out of their policy of aggression and empire. We came within a few aircraft carriers of losing the Pacific out of our willful blindness to the nature of the Japanese.

I think you're expecting a little too much thinking from our next president(!!!), Ed. And listen to his delivery of the speech. He sounds like a robot--like an actor reading the first run-through of a script.

This is frightening.

UPDATE: Just a few reminders...

57 States

Auschwitz versus Buchenwald

Stalin as WWII Enemy

UPDATE:Karl at Protein Wisdom takes note. For a good time, read the comments.

Which Party is the Party of Bigots Again?

Looks like Obama was wrong yet again. (Surprise!) Last time I checked, The New Yorker isn't run by Republicans.

It's the same old story--projection. Nice Afro on Michelle, though. (I mention this because white illustrators sometimes treat black hair in its natural state as if it's a mass of antennae on a space alien.)

Yes, it's tasteless and offensive, senator. So are you going to apologize to the Republican Party?

(Thanks to Ed Morrissey)

The Meaning of Spike Lee's Words

Roger L. Simon says what we all could figure out about Spike Lee--especially after the latter's "plantation" remark to Clint Eastwood:

Like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, time has been passing Spike Lee by. His worldview comes from another era and he has never really sought to revise it, to open his eyes. Proof of that is that for more than a decade Spike has barely made a film any of us can remember. Compare that to Eastwood, who, although some twenty-seven years Lee’s senior, is at the top of his career, having scored big in 2003-2004 with Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby.

No wonder Spike’s jealous. So what does he do? He reaches back to an era when he was more successful. He plays the old identity/race card. Now we could all laugh and say this is just another case of an (prematurely) aging artist grasping for attention, but these times are more complex than that. We don’t know which way we are going - toward a post-racial future or back to a racist past.

Rumor has it that Hollywood is one of the most racist places in the country. Though I live in LA, I don't operate in that world, so I don't know first hand whether this is so; however, even if this is true, there was a time when Lee's career flourished, perhaps peaking with 1992's Malcolm X--something which may have been a function of Denzel Washington's Oscar-nominated performance.

Spike made a successful, vaunted career by making movies about race or with race as a backdrop. He was the go-to director for such a genre and perhaps that's the problem. When he tried to branch out and away from that racial strait-jacket, it became obvious that he really isn't that great of a director.

So now Lee does what he has to do to get attention for his new project, Miracle at St. Anna, even stooping to taking cheap racial shots at the far more successful (and old, white, male, Republican) Eastwood of all people. I hope that the actors, no one I've heard of except for John Turturro, don't suffer for his stupidity and short-sightedness. That's the only reason that I might go see the movie.

Roger wonders how Lee's tactic relates to the post-racial future allegedly on the horizon. Thinking about the tenets of James Cone's and Jeremiah Wright's and Barack Obama's Black Liberation Theology, I personally wonder what the term 'post-racial' means to the proponents of that religion and to the Spike Lees of the world. Post white-racial "dominance," perhaps, would be a more descriptive term.

The question remains, however: what would replace it?

PREVIOUSLY:

"You Not Ma Daddy!"
Lee Tries to Make Eastwood's Day

"You Not Ma Daddy!" (UPDATED)

After Clint Eastwood tells Spike Lee to "shut his face" regarding the lack of black characters in Eastwood's two World War II films, Lee responds in a mature, manly fashion.

Or not.

"First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either," he told ABCNEWS.com.

"I didn't personally attack him."

Lee implied that Eastwood was a racist. Twice. I'd call those personal attacks.

Regarding that 'father' thing, I am reminded of the infamous You Tube clip of Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers demonstrating her similar daddy issues.

These people can afford to pay for psychoanalysis. But I guess than one would have to be not-crazy to realize that a shrinking is needed.

I was considering going to see Lee's film when it came out. Now I'm not so sure.

UPDATED: Former Spook (no, not that kind) says that there were some extras who were black in Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers.

If Mr. Lee bothered to watch Flags, he would find black Marines in a cutaway shot early in the film, and in a historical photograph that appears during the closing credits. Saying there are no African-Americans in the film is simply incorrect.

So, why aren’t blacks featured more prominently in the film? According to Professor Latty (and USMC records), a total of 700 African-American Marines served on Iwo Jima during the battle. But her opinion piece omits an important point, those black Marines represented less than one percent of the 80,000 who fought to take the island from the Japanese.

And, because of segregation, they were delegated to support roles.

Spook also details the Bronze-Star awarded courage of a pair of black Marines (in their combat support roles) but notes that they were not a part of the unit which raised the flag at Iwo Jima.

The battalion and its subordinate companies were all white—another product of the segregated Marine Corps of World War II.

Eastwood was, of course, adhering to historical accuracy rather than PC.

But Lee has succeeded in publicizing his film--and probably in riling up those who probably don't even know that the military was segregated back then and that it was probably one of the first--if not the first--government institutions to desegregate, undoubtedly stemming from the performance of men like the afore-mentioned Marines, the Tuskegee airmen and the "Buffalo Soldiers" which will be portrayed in Lee's WWII movie. Too bad he is doing them such a disservice.

(Thanks to Phelps)

USAF Leadership "Invited to Resign"

Let's just bend over, put our heads between our legs and kiss our own individual a**es goodbye.

Or have faith and believe that Someone is having mercy on us. Why? Because of what might have happened but didn't.

From Wired's Danger Room:

The Air Force's top civilian and uniformed leaders are being booted out of the Pentagon. Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley has resigned. Secretary Michael W. Wynne is next.

The move, initially reported by Inside Defense and Air Force Times, isn't exactly a shocker. The Air Force has come under fire for everything from mishandling nukes to misleading ad campaigns to missing out on the importance of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Most importantly, the Air Force's leadership has been on the brink of open conflict for months with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. That's because in the halls of the Air Force's chiefs, the talk has been largely about the threats posed by China and a resurgent Russia. Gates wanted the service to actually focus on the wars at hand, in Iraq and Afghanistan. "For much of the past year I’ve been trying to concentrate the minds and energies of the defense establishment on the current needs and current conflicts," he told the Heritage Foundation. "In short, to ensure that all parts of the Defense Department are, in fact, at war."

The article outlines the tug-of-war, so to speak, between the general and the SECDEF regarding the mission of USAF--a metaphor for the struggle between the autonomous fighter pilot-driven USAF and the joint and sometimes subordinate role of a new kind of Air Force, a change which some feel is necessary to fight a new type of enemy.

However, what got the the general and his civilian counterpart fired...er...asked to resign, wasn't their lack of enthusiasm for the USAF's new role. It was their failure to competently execute an old one--a failure that could have led to catastrophe.

The service inadvertently shipped "four high-tech electrical nosecone fuses for Minuteman nuclear warheads were [t]o Taiwan in place of helicopter batteries. The mistake was discovered in March — a year and a half after the erroneous shipment," The New York Times reports. "The mishandling of the nosecone fuses was viewed as another indication of lack of discipline within America’s nuclear infrastructure, and was another embarrassment for the people in charge of those weapons."

Last fall, the Air Force's 5th Bomb Wing lost track of six nuclear warheads. Then, in mid-May, the service flunked a nuclear surety inspection[.]

Noah Shachtman, the author of the Danger Room post, thinks that the nuclear issue is merely excuse for Gates to get rid of the two. Oh yeah, sure. He isn't really concerned that their lack of attention to their assigned responsibilities might accidentally kill millions of people. /s

Consider this twelve-page .pdf stinging rebuke from Gates (excuse the caps; methinks it was a decision made at the O-6 or higher level) and tell me that Gates is acting:

Rather than an isolated occurrence, the shipment of the four forward section assemblies to Taiwan was symptom of a degradation of the authority, standards of excellence, and technical competence within the nation's ICBM force.

Similar to the bomber-specific August 2007 Minot/Barksdale nuclear weapons transfer incident, this incident took place within the larger environment of declining Air Force nuclear mission focus and performance. Specifically, the investigation identified systemic issues associated with this decline.

Gates goes on to outline the problem areas: lack of standard authority, malfunction of oversight programs and dearth of expertise. To fix the problems, Gates has created an outside senior-level task force to be headed by Dr. James Schlesinger, a SECDEF under Nixon and Reagan and DCI under Nixon.

Gates then delivers a final blow:

Individuals in command and leadership positions not only fell short in terms of specific actions, they failed to recognize systematic problems, to address those problems, or--where beyond their authority to act--to call the attention of superiors to those problems. Each had the leadership responsibility to identify and correct--or flag for others--procedural and performance deficiencies identified in just a few weeks time by Admiral [Kirkland H.] Donald.

Lots more lesser heads are due to roll. See video of the statement and press conference at Danger Room.

(Thanks to the Donovan and to Iron Mike)

PREVIOUSLY: B-52 Flies With Live Nukes

AFTERTHOUGHT: I think I need a category entitled 'Holy Crap!!!'

Tough Week for Obama

Especially since this should be a good one for him.

The latest Vets For Freedom ad puts the senator in--shall we say--a less-than-flattering light.

In it, Iraq War veteran and Illinois native Sgt Garrett Anderson says that when he and 12 other members of the organization came to Obama's office in Washington DC that the senator was there. However, he refused to come out of his office!

Could it have been because they didn't have an appointment? Perhaps. However, when you're vying for Leader of the Free World and itching to become the Commander-in-Chief of persons like Sgt Anderson, to not even come out and say "Thank you for your service and I'd be happy to talk to you if you'd make an appointment with my assistant" just seem...spineless.

If our wannabe CinC is intimidated by or appears to be intimidated by those whom he would presume to lead, then how will he behave with our enemies, "preparations" or preconditions notwithstanding?

Speaking of Iran, Charles Krauthammer charts Obama’s descent on Iran policy.

Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure -- then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration's refusal to do so not just "ridiculous" but "a disgrace." After that, there was no going back. So he doubled down. What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.

Should the president ever meet with enemies? Sometimes, but only after minimal American objectives -- i.e. preconditions -- have been met.

And yet Obama continued down the road he had paved, bringing up “preparations,” purposely conflating these phantom “preparations” with preconditions, then arguing that "of course we’re not going in to talks with Iran without preparations, you silly Republicans."

And still, as of May 23, 2008 10:30 AM PDT, the following passage remains on his website:

Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.

It's the Consistency, Stupid...and the Cojones too...and the Priorities...and the Associations...and...

(Thanks to Ed Morrissey)

Toe to Toe

Over at Ace of Spades HQ, Drew M. caught this Senate floor volley between John McCain and Barack Obama regarding Senator James Webb's (D-VA) proposed update to the GI Bill of Rights.

Obama:

I respect Sen. John McCain's service to our country. He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can't understand why he would line up behind the President in his opposition to this GI bill.
I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans. I could not disagree with him and the President more on this issue. There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them.

McCain:

It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. … Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.

…And I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.

(Emphasis mine.)

It's going to be a hot summer.

Question: Did McCain play the ChickenDove card?

Obama, Bush and Preconditions

President Bush has been in Israel this week to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our ally's modern and often perilous existence. One of the nations which has continued to threaten Israel’s existence is, of course, Iran. And as we know, Iran has a nuclear weapons program and is a state sponsor of terrorism. Speaking to the subject of negotiating with terrorists before Israel's Knesset, here's the president today:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush told the Israeli lawmakers. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

No biggie, right? We all know this history--well some of us do. Do you think Barack Obama does? Because for some reason, he took swift and immediate exception to this statement.

It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack,” he said in a statement. “George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino denies that the statement was in reference to the senator and takes a smack at him as well:

I understand when you’re running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you -- that is not always true and it is not true in this case.

Just so. Obama also claims that Bush’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates agrees with him with regard to talking to Iran. But does he? Here is yesterday’s statement on the matter from Gates:

We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us." In the meantime, Gates told a meeting of the Academy of American Diplomacy, a group of retired diplomats, "my personal view would be we ought to look for ways outside of government to open up the channels and get more of a flow of people back and forth." Noting that "a fair number" of Iranians regularly visit the United States, he said, "We ought to increase the flow the other way . . . of Americans" visiting Iran. [SNIP]

The Bush administration has said it will talk with Iran, and consider lifting economic and other sanctions, only if Iran ends a uranium enrichment program the administration maintains is intended to produce nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. Although the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Baghdad met three times last year for discussions on Iraq, Iran has refused to continue that dialogue.

And let’s remember what is on Obama’s campaign site regarding his plans for Iran:

Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.

(All emphasis mine.)

Does Senator Obama know what a precondition is? Because he seems to be taking two different, mutually exclusive positions regarding diplomacy with Iran. And that's what's causing yet another problem with attempts to pin him down on policy--a symptom, no doubt, of his chronic double-think. The senator might want to do a little site clean-up. He also may want to stop whining and remember that Israel has terrorist problems apart from the Iranians and that the president may have this and other things on his mind.

The Miseducation of a Future President, Part II (UPDATE: Obama Tries the Jedi Mind Trick. Again.)

It turns out that Barack Obama did make the mistake I feared regarding his characterization of the 1945 Yalta meetings between US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and USSR President Josef Stalin.

I think people understand the notion of talking to our enemies," Obama said. "If FDR can meet with Stalin and Nixon can meet with Mao and Kennedy can meet with Khrushchev and Reagan can meet with Gorbachev, then the notion that we can't meet with some half-baked dictator [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] is ridiculous.

Tom Maguire:

Well, Stalin was a fully-baked dictator, but he was also our ally against Nazi Germany when he met with Roosevelt. [SNIP]

Think about this - the probable next President of the United States does not know even the broad outlines of the history of American foreign policy from WWII forward and does not know the history of Democratic icons Roosevelt or Truman.

Three things:

1. FDR was in his grave long before Stalin’s USSR became a full blown enemy.
2. Nixon’s meeting with Mao is the exception that proves the rule, but produced the aphorism “only Nixon could go to China” due to Nixon coming into the meeting from a position of strength rather than of supplication. And Nixon’s homework for the trip started well in advance of his second presidential candidacy. (The first was in 1960.)
3. Mikhail Gorbachev was taking affirmative steps to reduce antagonism with the West--not threatening to “bury us” or one of our allies. (Does Obama not remember when the Russian words glasnost’ and perestroika entered the American lexicon? He should remember the latter word since one of its English definitions is 'reorientation'--or, more simply, 'Change.')

Not knowing world history is one thing; not knowing the history of your own country is another; but not knowing presidential foreign relations history when one has a flocking degree in political science with a specialization in international relations from Columbia University and is running for president is a frightening issue. (A commenter to Burt Prelutsky’s observations regarding Ivy League presidents reminds us that, during the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination controversy, some pundits contended that Miers wasn’t qualified to sit on the USSC because she did not attend an Ivy League law school. But, perhaps at least one Ivy League institution should be concerned about one of its more basic programs.)

Unfortunately, Obama’s ignorance of his own field takes its place in a long line of frightening issues regarding the man behind whom the Democrats are uniting to become our 44th president.

(Thanks to Instapundit)

UPDATE: Now Obama campaign says that he never claimed to want to meet with Ahmadinejad without preconditions being on the table.

Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”

However, LGF finds yet more evidence that the senator says whatever is expedient at a given point in time even if it is 180 degrees contradictory to something he has said earlier. From the CFR debate last year:

QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.

In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.

This is becoming tiresome.

UPDATE: Screen Capture from BarackObama.com (click on it to see full version):

First line:

Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.

Do you get the feeling that my kinsman is making it up as he goes along?

My fellow Americans, especially black ones: is our pride at having the first black American president--even one who comes along and says anything--worth risking our nation's existence over? Because that's what's at stake. Our enemies smell this weakness.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

Fallen King Wallows in Ignorance

Stephen King tells Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard to shut up about the former's insult to the troops--while reiterating the same exact insult.

From King's site:

That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt. Noel Sheppard says, “Nice sentiment when the nation is at war, Stephen.” I guess he feels ignorance and illiteracy are OK when the country needs cannon-fodder. I guess he also feels that the war in Iraq has nationwide approval. Well, it doesn’t have mine. It is a waste of national resources. . . and that includes the youth and blood of the 4,000 American troops who have lost their lives there and for the tens of thousands who have been wounded. I live in a national guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career—military or otherwise. If you agree, find Sheppard on the internet, and send him an email:

“Hi, Noel—Stephen King says to shut up and I agree.”

Steve

(Emphasis mine.)

King's upshot is that these phantom "educational policies" cause illiteracy in young men and women and that these illiterate young men and women are limited to a singular career--the military.

Keep talking, Steve. You've lost this "illiterate" veteran for good and I'm sure that I'm not alone.

BACKGROUND: King Falls From Throne

UPDATE: I was going to leave a comment on the message boards at King's site, but they're shut down for some reason. Heh.

King Falls From Throne (UPDATED)

Stephen King:

I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.

Should I burn my copies of The Stand and It? After all, Mr. King thinks that people like me cannot read them. :::cough:::ASVAB:::cough::::

Did that car accident do something to him or was he always this idiotic? Being a Leftist is one thing, but claiming that persons in the military can't read? I became hooked on his books while stationed in Germany--because my fellow GIs were telling me how great they were.

One would assume that King hasn't read his marketing reports over the years, else he would have known better than to alienate a large portion of his fan-base.

(Thanks to Lucianne)

UPDATE: Apparently Mr. King never learned the First Rule of Holes: stop digging.

Rice versus Carter

Did the Secretary of State call the former president a liar?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday the Bush administration explicitly warned former President Jimmy Carter against meeting with members of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip and which is regarded by the U.S. as a terror group.

Rice, attending a regional meeting on Iraq's security and future, contradicted Carter's assertions that he never got a clear signal from the State Department. Rice told reporters that the U.S. thought the visit could confuse the message that the U.S. will not deal with Hamas.

"I just don't want there to be any confusion," Rice said. "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help" further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.[SNIP]

In an interview with NPR, Carter said the State Department did not warn him off the trip.

It sounds to me that neither Rice nor Carter are lying per se, but that Rice inadvertently gave Carter the loophole he needed to slither through in order to go and to claim that no one said not to. Here's how.

By saying that a meeting with Hamas wouldn't be 'helpful' to a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, Rice assumed that Carter wanted to be helpful to the Bush Administration goals and assumed that he desires a peaceful settlement--with peaceful meaning that none of parties in question is pushed into the sea.

Therefore, she assumed that merely expressing disapproval without using the explicit words "don't go or we'll revoke your passport" would work--especially on a former Head of State. Unfortunately she forgot with whom she was dealing. Jimmy Carter couldn't care less about the goals of a Republican Administration or about those of any set of Jews.

The only things that this particular former president cares about are: making himself look good and shaking off the tarbaby of his failed but mercifully short presidency. Good luck with that.

I joked about Carter being beset with dementia, but, on the real, he's got every narcissistic marble that he's ever had.

(Thanks to Lucianne)

Where Are This Man's Children?

And why don't they force him into a nursing home?

[Former President Jimmy Carter] spoke in Jerusalem after meeting last week with top Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal, and his deputy in Syria. It capped a nine-day visit to the Mideast aimed at breaking the deadlock between Israel and Hamas militants who rule the Gaza Strip.

"They (Hamas) said that they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, if approved by Palestinians and that they would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor next door in peace," Carter said.

In Damascus, Mashaal said Hamas was offering Israel a 10-year truce if it withdraws from all lands it seized in the 1967 war.

He confirmed that Hamas would be satisfied with a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders — implicitly accepting that Israel would exist alongside that state. But Mashaal stressed the group would never outright recognize the Jewish state.

"We agree to a (Palestinian) state on pre-67 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital with genuine sovereignty without settlements but without recognizing Israel," Mashaal told reporters.

Nobody's buying it; How can you offer a truce to a country which you don't believe exists? Hamas-types aren't even crafty enough to keep from contradicting Carter.

Or perhaps Hamas is having sport with a bitter old man who is possibly suffering from dementia.

If the former president's kids loved him, they would intervene. It's sad, however, to ponder that they may be as tired of him as many of the rest of us are.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

RELATED: Hamas Parting Gift.

Is There a Manual of Which I am Not in Possession? (UDATED)

I had to come up for air to comment about this: prepare to roll your eyes and smack your forehead (in my case, fivehead) after reading this op-ed about you-know-who.

"Elitist" is another word for "arrogant," which is another word for "uppity," that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

Perhaps I've been taken off of the Code Word mailing list for cause.

Unwillingly, I feel a bit of admiration toward the author, David K. Shipler, for his ability to twist the definition of the word 'elitist' into a racial epithet. That takes skill.

Okay, I'll say it. Robert Johnson was :::cough::: :::hack::: correct.

(Thanks to Cuffy Meigs posting at Ace)

SOMETHING I MISSED: Cuffy finds another Shipler op-ed using a word that doesn't need to be in the Code Word manual.

TWIST AGAIN: Neptunus Lex reminds me that Dick Cavett criticized General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker for using high-falutin', specialized language when the latter two addressed a couple of senate committees last week--implying that the two were elitist. Does that mean that Dick Cavett is a racist? Or is that only a white-on-black crime?

What an ugly game this has become.

It's the "White" Church that Obama's Talking About (UPDATED)

Mickey Kaus and many others are still trying to make sense of Barack Obama’s defense of the following remarks.

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant [SIC] sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

(Emphasis mine.) Says Kaus:

It lumps together things Obama wants us to think he thinks are good (religion) with things he undoubtedly thinks are bad (racism, anti-immigrant sentiment). I suppose it's logically possible to say 'these Pennsylvania voters are so bitter and frustrated that they cling to both good things and bad things,." but the implication is that these are all things he thinks are unfortunate and need explaining (because, his context suggests, they prevent voters from doing the right thing and voting for ... him). Yesterday at the CNN "Compassion Forum" Obama said he wasn't disparaging religion because he meant people "cling" to it in a good way! Would that be the same way they "cling" to "antipathy to people who aren't like them"--the very next phrase Obama uttered? Is racism one of those "traditions that are passed on from generation to generation" that "sustains us"? Obama's unfortunate parallelism makes it hard for him to extricate him from the charge that he was dissing rural Pennsylvanians' excess religiosity.

If you think about it, the fact that Obama lumped the perceived religion of the white, rural Pennsylvanian with “antipathy toward those not like them”--that is, racism, bigotry and anti-immigration (sic)--makes perfect sense.* The latter is bad and so is the former—if one is observing from the perspective of Black Liberation Theology. In Obama’s mind, the religion clung to by the “average poor white Pennsylvanian” is BLT’s demonic “white” Church. The "white" Church is the tool of oppression for all—including poor whites—and should be shaken off just like other social maladies. Just like anti-immigration (sic) and racism. One will note that, in the defense of the earlier remarks, Obama still does not say anything objectively positive about the religion adhered to by the average rural white Pennsylvanian. What he actually says is that government should answer their prayers.

But what is absolutely true is that people don’t feel like they are being listened to. And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention [to their prayers!]. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.

Never forget where this guy is coming from. * Apologists for illegal immigration are becoming too confident in leaving out the all-important adjective 'illegal' when discussing the subject.

UPDATE: I'm not sure but I think that this my first Ace-lanche. Be gentle with me.

UPDATE:Good morning/afternoon/evening to Glenn's readers also. Hot Air's too!

UPDATE: Please read Karl's primer on Black Liberation Theology at Protein Wisdom.

Real Talk on Obama, Individualism and Being Fooled

If you take a position on the Iraq war or health care, you will attract reaction from people who say you’re crazy, but they will be responding to what you actually said and, more or less, to how you actually meant it. The same is not true of race. Text that deals with a difficult racial issue is like a Rorschach ink blot. People project onto that text—project their own experiences, anxieties, angers; all the emotions that go into thinking about race, which means all the emotions that exist. You can weigh every word of your text. You can rewrite it until you think there is absolutely no way that a fair-minded person can fail to understand what you said. And they will not only fail to understand it, they will accuse you of saying exactly the opposite of what you said.

--Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve

It’s a concept that is applied equally and leads in multiple directions.

Warning: when reading the following, please note the use of words and phrase like 'some,' 'sometimes,' 'not all,' etc.

Warning Two: if the rock didn't hit you, don't yelp.

Ever since some previously somnambulant people began to notice truths which were self-evident to the awake about presidential candidate Barack Obama, his mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright and their adherence to Black Liberation Theology (in addition to the candidate's faithful adherence to classic socialism/communism, elitism and Identity Politics), one can notice the sense of blind outrage in the tone of some white observers, most curiously in the tone of those who are conservative. Sometimes that outrage is not only directed at the candidate, but at all black Americans. It’s as if black Americans had collectively sworn some Oath to forgive all white Americans--as if they needed forgiving--but because Obama, Wright and their ilk exist, that phantom Oath has been violated. To some, this ilk somehow represents all black Americans and in order for us—all black Americans, that is—to be trusted again, we must repudiate the haters and their ideology.

All over the conservative Internet, I’ve seen comments like this one:

I'm not giving [black Americans] a pass any more on anything. They have to rise up and demand Obama's refutation of the evil preacher. [SNIP] I will demand they act like adults and clean their own house of the hatred that we don't tolerate. If they don't dissociate themselves from Obama, the Apologist of hate, then they are throwing their lot in with him, and for that they will have lost my good-will.

Why was that individual giving any racial group of Americans as a single entity a pass on anything in the first place? And who died and made this individual or anybody else the giver of passes? That went out in 1863.

My citizenship is a right, not some privilege issued by anyone. I am allowed to love and hate whom I please as long as I don't step on another's toes. And I don't have to answer for anyone to whom I did not give birth. Tolerate this.

In turn, however, neither I nor any other person/group has the right to offer another person/group any absolution for the sins of their fathers--if those sins exist--nor make anyone feel guilty about sins not their own. Someone asked what my rant on principles was about; this was it. Some conservatives talk about individualism but when it comes time to apply the concept under adversity—under conditions where the concept of individualism isn’t reciprocated--it’s too damn hard. So when the Obamas and Wright and James Cone--who aren’t even conservatives--espouse Black Liberation Theology; when the relatively few other black supremacists, narcissists and conspiracy theorists spout their hatred, such people automatically become the responsibility of 30 million other Americans who happen to be black also. Why? Nobody serious asks white people to repudiate the darlings at places like Stormfront and Loose Change nor should they. (It's as if some of you thought that white people had a lock on lunacy. On the contrary, Crazy and Evil are equal opportunity employers.)

Haven’t conservatives been telling liberals to dispense with the Group Identity Politics, to embrace Individualism? Well, Conservatives, heal thyself! People who didn’t really buy into individualism or who found it easier to treat blacks as a monolith because most blacks themselves do so, bought Obama’s cover—the “good looks,” the stentorian, MLKish voice, the Harvard education, the Hope, the Change, the Post-Racial narrative—even when his autobiography told a different story. Those who believed the hype included a goodly portion of white conservatives, who “wouldn’t vote for him, but could hang out with the guy.” Hah! Obama wore Shelby Steele's mask of good guy; a black dude who didn’t seem to be angry at white people—if one was looking at the accouterments and not reading and listening too closely. But scratch his purty surface and he's all hugged-up with the bad guys.

His dissembling suggests the difference is only between the blacks who hate you and show it and the blacks who hate you and lie about it. Of course that's not the case, but the question then becomes how, exactly, do you tell which blacks hate you and which do not? If Obama is lying, then who isn't?

My answer:

You trust individuals after they have proven themselves. Anyone who trusted Obama--or trusts any other human--on faith is a fool.

(Sorry, WO. I'm not trying to pick on you, but your question was instructive and I think that you're getting it.)

Too many people used a different standard to judge Obama's character--perhaps a messianic one. To some Obama represented Group forgiveness. But not only does this demigod have Play-Dough feet, he's allied with the other side. That’s why the anger is so fierce in some of these quarters; it’s the anger of betrayal.

Error is spread around equally. As I said, a good deal of the black population views itself—and whites--as a monolith and will get mad at you and hurl epithets at you if you don't subscribe to this point of view. :::cough::: (And the odd thing with some of the black supporters of Obama is this: some behave as though no other black American will get a shot at the White House for a hundred years if Obama loses. I contend that the same could be true if Obama wins, but that's beside the point.) But if the principle of Group Innocence or Group Guilt is wrong, it’s wrong, no matter if it’s a majority view or not. Let them get mad. Do you conservatives believe in conservative principles? Then apply them to everyone without apology. Group Innocence and Group Guilt are not conservative concepts.

So when I tell some of you white conservatives that you haven't been following your conservative principles when judging this man, Barack Obama, could you do me a favor and not twist what I’m saying, not turning it into some cudgel of White Guilt that I’m allegedly beating you over the head with? I'm not looking for your apology because you don't have anything to apologize for. You've fallen short and missed your own mark. Welcome to the human race.

Now that you’ve been rudely awakened, perhaps those of you conservatives who actually have principles—rather than commodities—will revert to using them and start leading with your eyes open. That’s not a Black Thing or a White Thing. It’s called the Law of All Jungles. (Heh.)

And be thankful that you are awake. Some aren’t so lucky.

AFTERTHOUGHT: To those who thought Obama was a crypto-Muslim, I'm not all that mad at you anymore. You knew that some type of game was being played. You just didn't have enough experience to sniff out which one.

(Thanks to brotherbrown)

Back to Africa Again

UPDATE (February 9, 2016): This whole post is one big [sic]. Barack Obama Senior was not on the Kennedy/Mboya airlift.

ORIGINAL: The airlift which brought my father--Philip Ochieng--and Barack Obama, Sr. to America is back in the news again. Originally discussed this time last year after Obama, Jr.'s Selma speech--which saw the senator curiously attribute some of the events surrounding his 1961 birth to the 1964 Selma march—Obama asserted that the airlift in question was due to the efforts of John F. Kennedy. Observers threw the BS flag on that as well since Obama had already been conceived by the time JFK was sworn in as POTUS. However, when I found out that my father had been on the same plane as Obama Senior, I did some digging and discovered that JFK had indeed been responsible for an airlift of students from Kenya before he became president. An op-ed written by my father in 2004 seemed to confirm this.

Like Obama Senior, I too went to the US on the famous Tom Mboya Airlift of 1959 [when hundreds of Kenyan students were given scholarships to American universities]. I first met Obama Senior in Tom Mboya's Nairobi office [Mboya was then the secretary general of the Kenya Federation of Labour]. Obama and I met up again on returning to Nairobi and remained drinking buddies for many years.

(Emphasis mine. That will be important in a moment.) Note that my father calls the trip the ‘Tom Mboya Airlift.’ However, the 1960 article in TIME magazine calls it the ‘Kennedy Airlift.’ At first I chalked the difference up to cultural pride--of course, each nation would want to give their countryman the credit. After that, it seemed that the bit of history was settled. (Obama was on his own as far as the Selma issue went, however.)

Then, last week, I received an email from a gentleman named Gregory Gelembiuk who provided yet more info about the airlift. Mr. Gelembiuk contended that Senator Obama was deliberately lying about the Kennedy connection because the Ivy-educated senator was more used to doing in-depth research than I am, because he has access to more information than I do and because the senator has a history of, shall we say, selective recall. All are true but I was merely going by what my father had said.

Later in the week I received an email from the Washington Post’s Michael Dobbs who asked about the same information, so I provided him with my father’s email address and at least one link, courtesy of Mr. Gelembiuk. I don’t know whether either was useful to Mr. Dobbs, but today’s Post contains his piece entitled “Obama Overstates Kennedys' Role in Helping His Father.”

Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960. [SNIP]

A more accurate version of the story would begin not with the Kennedys but with a Kenyan nationalist leader named Tom Mboya, who traveled to the United States in 1959 and 1960 to persuade thousands of Americans to support his efforts to educate a new African elite. Mboya did not approach the Kennedys for financial support until Obama Sr. was already studying in Hawaii.

So the problem is that there was more than one sortie in the airlift and Obama--and Hot Air's Allahpundit and myself--got one of the Kennedy-funded trips confused with earlier ones which had different funding--an easy thing to do since none of us were born yet when the events in question occurred.

Personally I didn't even know about the airlifts until Obama mentioned it last year and I asked my father about it afterward. Compounding the confusion, my father innocently bunches all of the sorties together when telling of the endeavor in his 2004 column. He speaks of hundreds of students being the beneficiaries of Mboya’s idea rather than the eighty-one students in the singular year of 1959, among them himself and Obama Sr.

In 1959 Mboya coordinated an “airlift” of 81 Kenyan students to the United States to attend college, and shortly after attending the “Africa Freedom Dinner,” Mboya wrote [Dr. Martin Luther] King requesting financial assistance for a Kenyan student who was to enter Tuskegee Institute in the fall.

In an 8 November 1959 letter to the New York Times Mboya explained: “Nothing constitutes a greater contribution to the struggle against poverty, disease and political subjection in Africa more than the contribution made towards our peoples’ educational advancement.” With the help of the African American Students Foundation and its sponsors, Harry Belafonte, Jackie Robinson, and Sidney Poitier, Mboya raised sufficient funds to cover the students’ travel expenses.

Believing that Africans and African Americans shared “a common struggle” against colonialism and segregation King took an active interest in the education of African students. He encouraged college presidents in the United States to expand financial aid options available to Africans. He arranged for the Montgomery Improvement Association and other Montgomery organizations to fund five Kenyan students to study at American universities and pledged the SCLC and Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to fund the living expenses for Kenyan student, Nicholas Raballa, who was admitted to Tuskegee Institute.

(It is interesting to know that Mboya went to the black glitterati of the era for help and good to know that they came through. Upon discovering this new information, I briefly considered being nicer to Mr. Belafonte from now on, then discarded the notion. After all, who knows who else will be discovered to have been responsible for Obama's and my presence in this country?)

The bottom line is this: I dissent from Misters Gelembiuk, Dobbs and Morrissey in that I think the discrepancies in the airlift story are an innocent mistake on Obama's part. Of course I understand why they do not believe this-- they're thinking of all the not-so-innocent mistakes on topics large and small which the good senator has made. I, too, would have come to a similar conclusion if it weren't for the mitigating circumstances which I've highlighted.

But "I ain't mad at" the above gentlemen if they're not convinced. See, that's the problem with chronic dissembling. Even when you make an honest-to-goodness oopsie, no one believes that it stems from honesty or goodness. [Re-edited]

A Democrat Party in Baghdad

Remember when former British MP George Galloway testified before the US Senate on his alleged complicity in the UN Oil-for-Food scandal? I recall that Galloway seemed rather hostile and smug toward his mild-mannered inquisitor, Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN). Thinking about all the other occasions when I’ve seen Galloway interact with ideological opponents, I concluded that Galloway is generally an unpleasant person, that his interaction with Coleman was just “Gorgeous” George being himself.

Then again, Galloway’s smugness might have been due to his knowledge of this:

Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion.

An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.

The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. There was no indication the three lawmakers knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.

Al-Hanooti--a former CAIR official--has also been charged with being a spy for Saddam's Iraq.

Ed Morrissey finds out from the Weekly Standard that the three representatives even broadcasted from Baghdad—from right in Saddam’s lap basically—calling President Bush a liar.

[ABC's "This Week" host] George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott about his recent comment that “the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.”

McDermott didn’t backpedal at all: “I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation. . . . It would not surprise me if they came out with some information that is not provable, and they, they shift it. First they said it was al-Qaeda, then they said it was weapons of mass destruction. Now they’re going back to and saying it’s al Qaeda again.” When Stephanopoulos pressed McDermott about whether he had any evidence that Bush had lied, the congressman replied, “I think the president would mislead the American people.”

Word and deed allegedly funded by the Butcher of Baghdad.

No wonder George G. smirked his way through the entire senate proceeding back in 2005. I say that he knew that some of “ours” were no better than he is.

NOT REALLY RELATED: Detroit is just a hotbed of perfidy, ain't it? No pun intended.

Lost Book Bleg (UPDATE)

Weeks ago, I lost a copy of John Bolton's Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations--a copy which belongs to the Los Angeles Public Library's Robertson branch.

Now, I'm sure that people who are familiar with the book are wondering how I could misplace such a thick book. Well, it's easy to do after you've sat in an emergency room for seven hours, as I did with my great-aunt. (She had a bad burn, courtesy of an errant cup of microwaved coffee; she's fine). There's no sign of the book at the hospital in question. One hopes that it's being read, at any rate.

I wrote an email to Mr. Bolton's assistant at the American Enterprise Institute to see whether he'd be amenable to replacing the book. However, I know that there are some folks out there reading who have some acquaintance with the former ambassador and who could, perhaps, get his assistant to at least open my email--entitled "Lost Library Copy of 'Surrender is Not an Option.'"

Can't hurt to ask.

UPDATE: I got a swift reply. (Thanks.) Unless one of you fine folks does me a good deed, I'm going to query the publisher.

Fear of a Barack Planet

From Politico:

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of "shameful offensive fear-mongering" by circulating a photo as an attempted smear.

Plouffe was reacting to a banner headline on the Drudge Report saying that aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) had e-mailed a photo calling attention to the African roots of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

"The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat front-runner dressed as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya," the Drudge Report said. [SNIP]

Plouffe said in a statement: “On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.

The dervishes started their whirl about this yesterday in conservative blogs. I remember thinking “this will be a losing proposition for anyone who runs with it.” But if this particular aspect of the Obama-is-really-a-Muslim Whisper Campaign was ginned up by the Clintons, then Senator Clinton more desperate than we may have thought.

The move is so bad that it even caused GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele to bash it.

Back to conservative bloggers and their assertions about Obama’s religion. Many of them tend to try to figure out how Obama’s religion—whatever it may be--fits into his Kenya Luo heritage, his visits to Kenya, his relationship with Raila Odinga* (his second cousin), the present political and social chaos in Kenya and all of the other issues concerning the senator’s ties to that country. The problem with much of their analysis is that they tend to shape it to fit the conclusion. Therefore, since they “know” that the man is an undercover Muslim, then anything he does points to his being a Muslim—including having the temerity to meet with a relative and not being able to predict that the person will misbehave later on; including visiting a culture and being open to wearing their traditional dress.

There’s even some clown that’s claiming that Obama isn’t even an ‘African-American,’ but ‘Arab-American.’ Still others, expound from their wealth of knowledge and logic, want to claim that the senator isn’t ‘African-American’ because he isn’t a descendant of American slaves. (This sort of legalistic Bravo Sierra is why I prefer terms like ‘black,’ ‘black American’ or ‘black African.’ Also, I heard a Tuskegee Airman used the term ‘African-descended American’—very good.)

Of the several sites devoted to exploring Obama’s background, I’ve found only one that presents uncovered facts and lets the reader come to conclusions (the preamble notwithstanding). He is also open to correction.

Don’t get me wrong. I think that it’s reasonable to check into Obama’s past—including his religion. As a matter of fact it’s crucial to question the senator’s ties to Trinity United Church of Christ—whose About page makes no mention of the Sacrifice and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Salvation offered there from, and whose platform is remarkably exclusionary and similar in tone to that of the Nation of Islam. (TUCC also has ties to Louis Farrakhan, who talks up Obama whenever he can.)

I just think that it’s best not to operate from fear and the Right’s fear of Obama is palpable. Fear is what terrorists are selling and it also makes one blunder, conservatives. Ask Senator Clinton.

Learn to separate what is proven from the apparitions found in your nightmares.

And if Robert Spencer isn't worried, should you be?

(Thanks to Drudge and to Hot Air)

*There is this document which is supposed to have been signed by Odinga. It is a Memo of Understand which promises Kenya’s Muslims—10% of the population—that, if elected, Odinga would enact Sharia law. Many Kenyans seem to think that it’s a forgery, but no answers are forthcoming. A lot of actual research was done by Eric Scheie with links posted in this comment.

Ready for the Rest Home

49-year-old Prince is having a hip replacement. You know, Prince, as in Prince Rogers Nelson, as in Purple Rain Prince.

Just pass me my cane.

(No Thanks to Hot Air)

From Move America Forward to the Berkeley City Council

...with resolve. "“We’ve served this nation to protect the rights of ingrates like you.” Cosign.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE:

Contact the Berkeley City Council. Be nice.
Move America Forward

PREVIOUSLY:

Roundup February 7, 2008 (scroll down)
Indulging the Lunacy

There's Pride and Then There's Pride

Yesterday, Michelle Obama stirred up a storm when she declared that “...for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country. And it’s not just because Barack has done well, but because people are hungry for change.” (That last sentence of hers was an obvious non sequitur—an unsuccessful attempt at covering the self-centeredness of the first.)

Now, various critics have pointed out that Mrs. Obama must not have been keeping up on current events, historical documents or on her own charmed life during her 26-year sojourn as an adult (she’s 44). Perhaps.

However there’s one particular event that should be standing out in her mind right now and that event's resolution should make her very proud of our country. And the fact that the resolution did not stick out in her mind says a lot about her. What am I talking about? I’m talking about this country’s peaceful reaction to the contested 2000 presidential election.

Contrast that reaction to the violence resulting from Kenya’s contested 2007 presidential election.

For two obvious reasons, the comparison should have been foremost in her mind when it came to deciding whether to be proud or really proud of our country. Curious that it did not.

UPDATE: At Protein Wisdom, Darleen Click masterfully breaks down the speaking performance of the Better Half of the Obama Union--the hair, the dress, the jewelry, the body language, the rhetorical choices and flourishes. Wow!

So It's All About the Sisterhood, NOW?

The Great Identity Politics War is like the Mother of all Pile-ups; I just can't look away!

The latest salvo sees Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama cause New York's NOW chapter to flip out.

Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. [SNIP]

This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation - to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who “know what’s best for us.”

I suppose that the 70+% of black women who voted for Obama in the South Carolina primary aren't really women. Or perhaps black women are too stupid to figure out that Hillary Clinton has their best interest at heart while Obama couldn't possibly have that, being a tripod and all. And see how these tripods stick together?

Somewhere, Mary Jo Kopechne (pictured) is laughing uncontrollably.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

Not Shocked (UPDATED)

Bob Owens publicizes the written statements made during the military investigation related to Scott Beauchamp's "Shock Troops" series.

Observation: these guys have the worst handwriting! Casualty of the keyboard.

UPDATE (January 22, 2008): Bob now has two of Scott Beauchamp's written statements posted.

War is Hell

Recently, the New York Times ran a misleading, much-bashed and discredited series on the " widespread violent actions" perpetrated by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans subsequent to their return home.

Iowahawk, however, documents the widespread violent actions rampantly committed by veterans of another sort.

These people could snap at any minute!

...claims one expert. I'm scared!

(Thanks to Blackfive)

Propaganda Battle Lost

In spite of Columbia President Lee Bollinger’s excellent preamble to Monday’s Columbia speech/Q&A by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it seems that Islamist Propaganda was the victor yesterday. From the Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA):

Despite entire US media objections, negative propagation and hue and cry in recent days over IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's scheduled address at Colombia University, he gave his lecture and answered students questions here on Monday afternoon.

On second day of his entry in New York, and amid standing ovation of the audience that had attended the hall where the Iranian President was to give his lecture as of early hours of the day, Ahmadinejad said that Iran is not going to attack any country in the world.

Before President Ahamadinejad's address, Colombia University Chancellor in a brief address told the audience that they would have the chance to hear Iran's stands as the Iranian President would put them forth.

He said that the Iranians are a peace loving nation, they hate war, and all types of aggression. [SNIP]

The audience on repeated occasion [sic] applauded Ahmadinejad when he touched on international crises.

As mentioned before, Ahmadinejad used the proposed visit to Ground Zero to front as the confused, offended head-of state and the resulting outcry against the visit allowed him to appropriate the moral high ground against the “incomprehensibly rude” Americans. What he could not have counted on was Columbia’s invitation. This gave his government’s press the opportunity to whitewash the nature of the visit and to further elevate the “(Islamist) street cred” of the Holocaust Denier and Supplier of Weapons which kill and maim our troops in Iraq.

Nice going, Columbia.

(Thanks to Protein Wisdom)

Getting It Coming and Going

Recently, my Kenyan father was unfortunate enough to get a real-life demonstration of the axiom that “no good deed goes unpunished.” Philip Ochieng:

We were crawling towards home when a man — who turned out to be totally drunk — suddenly zoomed into the street and knocked himself against my car. I do not say this to cast the first stone. Alcohol incapacitates even the most aristocratic of us.

So my first impulse was to rush him to a hospital. While he was being dressed (at my expense), I sent for my own crutches — we had obtained a pair when one of us fractured a leg a few years ago — and gave them to him.

Made a damning report

The next day I insisted that he be X-rayed and again paid for it. A bone was found broken. Meanwhile, we drove to the police station to record the problem — only to find that our friend’s relatives had already been there and made a damning report against us.

Their story to the police was that we had been driving carelessly and caused the accident. I don’t drive and, at least while I am around, my driver knows better than to speed, especially in the middle of a busy town like Kikuyu.

But when we rolled into the police station, my car was immediately impounded, making me immobile for three days. Why? Because, said the police, they needed to inspect the contraption — presumably because they had swallowed the yarn spun by our friend’s family.

Eventually the inspection yielded a puny little fault around a front light. Although the possibility of a faulty light causing an accident at noon seemed to me remote, I knew that it was impolite to pose such a question at a police station.

So when an officer informed me that I must “deposit” Sh3,000 [KES; roughly equivalent to $45 USD, but remember we’re talking about a different standard of living] in “bond” pending a court case, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to contest it either.

Why should I? Being a law-abiding citizen, I know the law like the back of my hand.

And I didn’t need to be Habakkuk or Amos to know that the magistrate would find my driver guilty of something and fine him.

Spending it on a good cause

I didn’t need to be Isaiah or Malachi to know the exact the figure — the very same Sh3,000 I had deposited.
But parting with Sh3,000 for a crime you did not commit is not the thing about it. For — from the theory book — I knew that the money would end up in the Treasury, where [Kenyan MP] Amos Kimunya would give it (legal) tender care before spending it on a good public cause.

Much more interesting was that our friend of the “accident” was not finished with us. We have since received a phone call from him demanding Sh30,000 from us to defray the costs of his hospitalisation and treatment.
In Kenya, when you voluntarily help a man out of a situation of his own making, what you get for it is not a “thank you” but a bid, by trickery, to turn your help into a fountain of cash.

And you thought we were saddled with a “Culture of Corruption!” Normally, I would have judged the drunkard to be a victim of misfortune also in that he and his family attempted to blackmail someone possessing such a public platform. But, of course, it matters not one little bit; the family in question probably can't read anyway and the essay reads as though all--great and small--are required to grease palms when caught in the type of trap which my father found himself in.

Though my father frames this series of incidents in the backdrop of a general perception of Kenyan societal perfidy, Kenyans, of course, are no more crooked than those of any other nationality. Certainly, the US has a large number of free-enterprise criminals and lawsuit-happy swindlers looking for the big payoff; and, of course, it has had its share of shamelessly corrupt law enforcement agencies. Unlike Americans, however, Kenyans can’t simply move to another city; they exist under a singular system which promotes the type of behavior demonstrated here. As my father portrays his country’s government, it is a classic African kleptocracy--affecting everyone from the top official down to the poorest citizen, seemingly with no escape, as demonstrated here. (The Kenyan government is far from the continent’s worst in this regard.) Therefore, the poorest citizen reasons “if the police/politicians can freely shake me down, why can’t I shake down the next guy?”

(Also, these poor see little of the international aid monies/materiels which flow into the continent. Everyone knows that almost all of the aid serves to line the pockets of the various groups of elites. Everyone except Bono, that is.)

Apparently it was the old man's turn to get caught in the crossfire.

Economic activists like James Shikwati are engaged in attempting to break this cycle. But, in the meantime, I’m guessing that Kenyans who aren’t poor keep a graft fund—just in case; while those who are poor look for ways to get their hands on those funds.

It’s got to be a tough way to live.

Beauchamp Coda(?) (UPDATED: PJM Interview)

Michelle Malkin interviews Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb.

Goldfarb:

[The New Republic] forgets that [Scott Beauchamp] works for the United State Army, not the New Republic. [SNIP]

Am I supposed to feel guilty that [the war turned Beauchamp] into a monster before [Beauchamp] ever got [to the war]?

Meanwhile, there is still no update from TNR regarding the Beauchamp situation since late July; that is, nothing in public.

Isn't' that odd?

UPDATE: At Pajamas Media, Confederate Yankee's Bob Owens has an exclusive interview with Major John Cross, the Army officer who lead the investigation into Beauchamp's claims. A taste:

Major John Cross - Executive Officer, 1-18 Infantry (Vanguards), Second (Dagger) Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division - was the lead investigating officer. After days of careful scrutiny and interviews with all involved personnel, he found all charges made by Beauchamp in The New Republic to be false.

The details which Major Cross provides seem to confirm what we already know. Additionally, the Army seems to be allowing Beauchamp the opportunity to clean up his act and "to complete his tour of service in an honorable fashion." Good.

Train to Nowhere (UPDATED)

Democrat campaign finance bungler bundler Norman Hsu was apprehended last night in Grand Junction, Colorado as a result of being an Amtrak passenger. It seems that Hsu took so ill during his voyage that the paramedics were summoned.

Amtrak personnel [sic] took him to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., a hospital spokesman said.

There, he was arrested by the FBI a few hours later on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He was expected to appear before a federal magistrate-judge as early as this morning, pending his likely extradition back to California.

Schadenfraude on the Right is running deep this morning.

When I first heard that Hsu had been caught and about his mode of transportation, I wondered about the route of the train. A Rocky Mountain News/AP report implies that the train's endpoint was Denver. But whether Denver was the endpoint of the train or not, it would be interesting to discover what Hsu's planned route of escape had been. I'm thinking that Hsu might have been trying to reach a place where he could avail himself of the bustling business that is human smuggling.

And, okay, yes, I'm laughing also.

UPDATE: The termination point of the California Zepher route--Hsu's train--is Chicago.

UPDATE: More from the San Jose Mercury News:

Hsu was traveling on Train #6, according to Cliff Cole, an Amtrak spokesman. Hsu boarded the train in Emeryville [CA] and was scheduled to get off the train in Denver, Cole said. Cole had no information as to who - if anyone - Hsu may have been traveling with.

What's in Denver? Why, a sizeable human trafficking network.

[Colorado State] Representative [Alice] Borodkin [D] cited that human trafficking is the third largest money maker for organized crime activities in Colorado.

Hsu was looking to flee the country on the down-low.

UPDATE: How did Hsu's 1992 felony conviction affect his legal resident status?

Hsu's disappearing act seemed to be a reprise of a move he pulled 15 years ago, when he failed to show up for sentencing in the same grand theft case. Hsu was facing up to three years in state prison, a $10,000 fine and restitution payments after pleading no contest to a single count of grand theft in what prosecutors described as a $1 million fraud scheme.

But while free on bail after his plea, Hsu dropped from sight for 15 years, apparently spending time in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan, only to emerge in recent years as a seemingly wealthy New York resident who donated generously to Democratic political campaigns, regularly attended fundraisers and was photographed with party leaders.

(Emphasis mine.)

Is Hsu an illegal alien?

My fault. Hsu is a naturalized citizen. I still don't know whether the felony conviction can affect his citizenship status or whether it did.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

PREVIOUSLY:

Hsu Really Missing This Time
"Hillraiser" is Fugitive

B-52 Flies With Live Nukes (UPDATED)

Yikes!

A B-52 bomber mistakenly loaded with at least five nuclear warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30, resulting in an Air Force-wide investigation, according to three officers who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.

The B-52 was loaded with Advanced Cruise Missiles, part of a Defense Department effort to decommission 400 of the ACMs. But the nuclear warheads should have been removed at Minot before being transported to Barksdale, the officers said. The missiles were mounted onto the pylons of the bomber's wings.

Having been a bomb-loader during my first enlistment in the USAF, I recall that, before the eighties, bombers used to routinely fly with live nuclear weapons. The reasons that the practice was stopped are self-evident.

Example One:

January 24, 1961, Goldsboro, North Carolina

In what nearly became a nuclear catastrophe, a B-52 bomber on airborne alert carrying two nuclear weapons broke apart in midair. The B-52 experienced structural failure in its right wing and the aircraft's resulting breakup released the two weapons from a height of 2,000-10,000 feet. One of the bomb's parachutes deployed properly and that weapon's damage was minimal. However, the second bomb's parachute malfunctioned and the weapon broke apart upon impact, scattering its components over a wide area. According to Daniel Ellsberg, the weapon could have accidentally fired because "five of the six safety devices had failed." Nuclear physicist Ralph E. Lapp supported this assertion, saying that "only a single switch" had "prevented the bomb from detonating and spreading fire and destruction over a wide area."

Despite an extensive search of the waterlogged farmland where the weapon was believed to have landed, the bomb's highly enriched uranium core was never recovered. In order to prevent any discovery of the lost portion of the weapon, the Air Force purchased an easement which required that permission be obtained before any construction or digging could begin in the area. Three crew members were killed in the crash.

The accident was apparently so serious that it was reported to newly-elected President John F. Kennedy. According to Newsweek, President Kennedy was informed after the accident that "there had been more than 60 accidents involving nuclear weapons" since World War II, "including two cases in which nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missiles were actually launched by inadvertence." As a result of the Goldsboro accident, the U.S. placed many new safety devices on its nuclear arsenal and the Soviet Union was encouraged to do the same.

(Emphasis mine.)

Example Two:

February 14, 1974, Plattsburgh AFB, New York

The nose landing gear of a USAF FB-111 carrying two short range attack air-to-surface missiles and two nuclear bombs collapsed as the aircraft was commencing an engine run-up during an alert exercise. There was no damage to the weapons and they were unloaded without incident.

The last incident occurred some seven years before I was stationed at Plattsburgh.

Admittedly, a long time has passed since I worked as a "load-toad" (I taught the Aircraft Armament Systems Apprentice course for a time), but I'm wondering how this accident could have taken place. As I recall live weapons and dummie weapons--those with all the fixins except for the warhead--were stored in separate facilities in order to prevent this sort of thing. Has that practice ceased? If not, the AF investigative authorities might want to give that load crew a good going over, along with the types responsible for storage management.

(Thanks to Memeorandum)

UPDATE: Bohica time, as it should be:

The Air Combat Command has ordered a command-wide stand down on Sept. 14 to review procedures, officials said. They said there was minimal risk to crews and the public because of safety features designed into the munitions.

In addition to the munitions squadron commander who was relieved of his duties, crews involved with the mistaken load — including ground crew workers — have been temporarily decertified for handling munitions, one official said.

Jogging my memory further, Former Spook also wonders how this "accident" could have happened.

First, nuclear weapons are segregated from "ordinary" munitions, with additional layers of security and access control. All personnel involved in the protection, storage, handling and loading of the weapons are carefully vetted through the military's Personnel Reliability Program (PRP). Anyone whose loyalty, judgment or stability comes into question loses their PRP certification, and they're no longer allowed to work around nuclear weapons.

Other safeguards are built into the system as well. There's a very tight chain of control; the device is literally "signed for" at every step of the journey from the weapons storage area to the aircraft, and the two-man "rule" is strictly enforced. An individual pilot or load crew member is never allowed to "control" the weapon on the ground.

Curiouser and curiouser.

[Re-edited; Typepad seems reluctant to save my changes.]

UPDATE: Our friends in China and at Al Jazeera take note--which actually may not be such a bad thing.

"Hillraiser" is Fugitive (UPDATED)

A bit more serious than Senator Larry Craig’s public bathroom habits—but far more entertaining--is the fact that one of Senator Hillary Clinton’s major fundraisers for her 2008 presidential campaign turns out to be a fugitive from justice.

For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish. [SNIP]

Hsu, it seems, has been hiding in plain sight, at least for the last three years.

Since 2004, one Norman Hsu has been carving out a prominent place of honor among Democratic fundraisers. He has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into party coffers, much of it earmarked for presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Apparently, California authorities weren’t looking too hard for a man who is, admittedly, not public enemy number one, but sheesh! During his time as a “desperado,” Mr. Hsu has been making himself useful to Democrat candidates nationwide.

In addition to making his own contributions, Hsu has honed the practice of assembling packets of checks from contributors who bear little resemblance to the usual Democratic deep pockets: A self-described apparel executive with a variety of business interests, Hsu has focused on delivering hefty contributions from citizens who live modest lives and are neophytes in the world of campaign giving. [SNIP]

As a Democratic rainmaker, Hsu -- who graduated from UC Berkeley and the Wharton School of Business -- is credited with donating nearly $500,000 to national and local party candidates and their political committees in the last three years. He earned a place in the Clinton campaign's "HillRaiser" group by pledging to raise more than $100,000 for her presidential bid.

Records show that Hsu helped raise an additional $500,000 from other sources for Clinton and other Democrats. [SNIP]

Records show that Hsu has emerged as one of the Democrats' most successful "bundlers," rounding up groups of contributors and packaging their checks together before delivering the funds to campaign officials. Individuals can give a total of $4,600 to a single candidate during an election cycle, $2,300 for the primaries and $2,300 for the general election.

One example of the kind of first-time donors Hsu has worked with is the Paw family of Daly City, Calif., which is headed by William Paw, a mail carrier, and his wife, Alice, who is listed as a homemaker.

The Paws -- seven adults, most of whom live together in a small house near San Francisco International Airport -- apparently had never donated to national candidates until 2004. Over a three-year period, they gave $213,000, including $55,000 to Clinton and $14,000 to candidates for state-level offices in New York [W$J].

The W$J link contains the individual Paw family contributors, along with amounts, dates and the very many local and national recipients. "Suffice it to say, the list is extensive."

The family includes a son, Winkle Paw, who Barcella said was in business with Hsu. Another son works for a Bay Area school board, while one daughter works for a hospital and another for a computer company. [SNIP]

Over the [three] years, Hsu and his associates have given to Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Barack Obama of Illinois and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. Obama and Biden, like Clinton, are seeking the presidential nomination.

Hsu's legal troubles date back almost 20 years.

Beginning in 1989, court records show, he began raising what added up to more than $1 million from investors, purportedly to buy latex gloves; investors were told Hsu had a contract to resell the gloves to a major American business.

In 1991, Hsu was charged with grand theft. Prosecutors said there were no latex gloves and no contract to sell them.

(Emphasis mine.)

When I first heard a detailed report about Mr. Hsu's "bundler" role (this morning), my first response was that the Democrats had nearly perfected a way to avoid the soft money restrictions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 aka McCain-Feingold--by making it appear that the many small donations came from this family. If this is so, the Democrats may have picked the perfect man to get around this--arguably unconstitutional--law. (Isn't this part of the reason that that there was so much bipartisan opposition to BCRA in the first place?)

One wonders whether Mr. Hsu has been protected from arrest over these few years of his making rain.

Our “betters”—Republican and Democrat—are no better than us. But we knew that.

(Thanks to Sweetness and Light, who is astonished that this story appeared in the Los Angeles Times)

UPDATE: Some Democrat candidates intend to away the tainted monies:

Al Franken, a Senate candidate in Minnesota, Rep. Michael Honda of California and Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania said they would divest their campaigns of donations from Norman Hsu, whose legal encounters and links to other Democratic donors have drawn public scrutiny in the past two days. Franken's campaign received $2,300 from Hsu and Sestak and Honda each received $1,000 for their re-election efforts.

The bigger boys and girls are less quick on the draw.

The Clinton campaign did not immediately comment on Hsu's legal situation. But in a statement issued Tuesday, the campaign defended Hsu in response to the Journal report about a San Francisco family whose contribution patterns tracked Hsu's.

"Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party and its candidates, including Senator Clinton," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a statement Tuesday. "During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them."

(Thanks to Lucianne)

UPDATE: Clinton follows suit.

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will give to charity the $23,000 in donations that she has received from a fundraiser who is wanted in California for failing to appear for sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge.

I bet that hurt.

Now, where is Mr. Hsu again?

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE: Hsu turns himself in.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, who had been a fugitive from a 1992 grand larceny case, was briefly jailed today [August 31] before posting bail.

Superior Court Judge H. James Ellis this morning ordered Hsu held and ordered bail set at $2 million. [SNIP]

Hsu appeared at the San Mateo County courthouse before 8 a.m., more than 45 minutes early. Having suddenly found himself front-page news, he has retained attorney James Brosnahan of the blue-chip San Francisco law firm Morrison & Foerster and the Los Angeles-based public relations firm headed by Michael Sitrick.

As Hsu waited in the hallway for the hearing to begin, he huddled with an attorney and spokesman Jason Booth. They declined to comment. Hsu spoke on his cellphone and chewed his fingernails.

Martin Lewis Invites the FBI to Tea

Have you ever had this type of "conversation" with a person? Said person makes nonsensical suggestions based on topical ignorance and when you try to clue the person in, he/she tells you not to interrupt. The person then proceeds to come to conclusions and/or make further recommendations based on the original faulty premises.

Though a blog post is by its nature not a conversation, Huffington Post's Martin Lewis puts up a post that reminds me of above-mentioned type of "exchange."

Dear General [Peter] Pace,

I note with admiration your courage in making clear your private concerns about the safety of the US military and the longterm danger to US national security caused by the President's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the quagmire in Iraq.

Though you are Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President's principal military advisor - President Bush has shown his disdain for your honesty and wisdom. Though you are a decorated Vietnam war hero - who has served his nation honorably for four decades - the President is dispensing with your services. You have one month left in your position before you are tossed out by the President.

President Bush is going to ignore your advice. Just as he has ignored the advice of other Generals who have had the courage to respectfully point out how terribly wrong he is in respect of the Iraq War and the safety of the US military he is sworn to protect. Highly-decorated colleagues of yours such as General Anthony Zinni (Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command), General Eric Shinseki (Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army) and General John Abizaid (Commander of the U.S. Central Command).

General Pace - you have the power to fulfill your responsibility to protect the troops under your command. Indeed you have an obligation to do so.

You can relieve the President of his command.

Not of his Presidency. But of his military role as Commander-In-Chief.

You simply invoke the Uniform Code Of Military Justice.

Lewis goes on to list the features of several Articles of the UCMJ and how they could be applied to the removal of the president's CinC powers--but not his domestic duties--blithely unaware that the president's role as defined by U.S. Constitution undermines the premise of his entire proposal.

This is merely another demonstration that reading and comprehending are two different things. (Is this guy is another one of those well-read Liberal/Leftists that we've heard about recently?)

To be fair, Lewis is a Brit, but he does live in the US. That means that he'll probably be receiving a visit from ChimpyMchitler's Boys and Girls--as well he should. Those who publicly advocate a military coup (treason) should be investigated.

When Lewis's commenters point out that he has suggested treason in a time of war, he denies it. Pathetically, he didn't even realize that his proposal to General Pace was the very definition of Treason.

(Thanks to Ed Morrissey)

UPDATE: Now Lewis is taking the "just-kidding" posture.

Most of the right-wing-nuts who have read this column seem to be oblivious to irony and satire...

Pay Day for Duke Players

In what is likely most certainly just the start of a string of settlements/civil suits, Duke University antes up to the formerly accused Duke lacrosse players.

DURHAM, N.C. - Duke University has reached an undisclosed financial settlement with three former lacrosse players falsely accused of rape, the school said Monday. [SNIP]

The players’ families racked up millions of dollars of legal bills in their defense, and appear likely to file a civil lawsuit against Nifong.

UPDATE:In K.C. Johnson's post on the settlement, many commenters wonder if the settlement provides legal cover for the Group of 88. In my unlearned opinion, probably.

Trick or Treat

Karl Rove wears his John Kerry suit for Halloween--both yesterday and today--and hilarity ensues. Here's Rove Kerry campaigning for Phil Angelides (Democrat candidate for California governor) at Pasedena City College last night:

Kerry then told the students that if they were able to navigate the education system, they could get comfortable jobs - ‘If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq,’ he said to a mixture of laughter and gasps.

Got that? Only the stupid and/or uneducated volunteer for the all-volunteer Armed Services.

But does he apologize and say that he mispoke? Noooo. He blames the GOP, George Bush, Tony Snow and all the "chickenhawks" far and wide for his gaffe and refuses to apologize to anyone--even while people like John McCain and organizations like the American Legion demand one from him.

And all this is occuring one week before the 2006 midterm elections. Actually, I doubt that this unforced error on Senator Kerry's part will have an effect on his cohorts who are up for election/reelection this year. However, I bet there are a lot of Democrat strategists marking the senator off of their list of potential stumpers for their candidate---at least as far as the next few days go.

(Thanks to too many to name)